Is this it?

The clicking of keys.

The shrill of the telephone. 

The tapping of a biro. 

The rolling of a chair. 

The sighs that fill the air minute after minute. 

Is this it?

Today, I feel miserable. Not in a "I'm going to bring you down with me" kind of miserable, more of an imaginary woodpecker tap tap tapping away at my head kind of thing. Each tap representing the same three words I ask myself every day. Is this it?

I work in a small office each day as I have done for the past four years of my life. Age group 18-22 has been spent with the same company. And while I have grown a lot as a person, I am still in no way closer to realising what I want to do with my life. I did not go to University like all of my friends did. Instead I took a job and bought a car and discovered my independence in my own way. I have saved more money than the majority of people my age will have saved in years to come and yet this still isn't enough. In no way do I take my job for granted. But I want more. I need more. I need to discover a life outside of the walls of the renovated barn that I have sat in for years that I know all the ins and outs of.

I know how to change the waste toner cartridge. I know where the blu tack is kept. If anyone has any strange requests they turn to me, who will 99.9% have it hidden deep in the back of my office drawers. Permanent markers? Check. Alan key? Check! (Please do not ask how I came to have an alan key in my drawer - I have no answers) I know where the special labels are kept. I know whether they go face up or face down on the printer. But I do not know where I am headed in life. Or where I should even begin.

Travelling is in my sights. At the moment it is the only thing I want. But no one else is in a position to go on the adventure with me. Do I go alone? Do I wait? SOMEBODY TELL ME. Because for some unknown reason, I can't seem to tell myself.

Is this it?

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan

I had heard so much about this book that when I saw it peeking out from the shelves of my local book shop I had to buy it. I sat on my bed turning it over in my hands and realised I had no real idea of what the book was actually about — other than a 24 hour store — but sometimes that is the best way, so I jumped right in. 

This book records the story of Clay Jannon, a 26 year old programmer/designer who has been hit by recession and is in need of a new job. He finds himself outside the slightly time warped Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore advertising for a new job and steps inside.

"I pushed through the bookstore's glass door. It made a bell tinkle brightly up above, and I stepped slowly through. I did not realise at the time what an important threshold I had just crossed."

I was pulled in from the start and enjoyed flicking through the early pages of this book. Much like Clay I was filled with curiosity as to what dwelled in the books back in the dark shelves which old members sought out night after night. The mystery surrounding old Mr Penumbra was infectious and the book had an eery feeling of magic running through it. (I was getting the idea that this could be a book store's version of Harry Potter - but on a much smaller scale.) The way in which Sloan describes his surroundings is incredibly vivid,  you almost begin to feel the atmosphere in the book climbing out into your bedroom and encompassing you in it; this is something that I cannot fault in the book.

"The shelves were packed close together, and it felt like I was standing at the border of a forest — not a friendly California forest, either, but an old Transylvanian forest, a forest full of wolves and witches and dagger-wielding bandits all waiting just beyond moonlight's reach. There were ladders that clung to the shelves and rolled side to side. Usually those seem charming, but here, stretching up into the gloom, they were ominous. They whispered of accidents in the dark."

Once I waded further into the book I found myself detaching from both the story and the characters. I felt there were no real explorations into the characters, no developments made. And rather than a 26 year old man, Clay and his friends seemed no older than 16 years old. The story runs away from the more mystical adventure that it began with and introduced the likes of Google as a character in itself.

The ending was quite an anti-climax as I really couldn't understand where the writer was going to go with it, it was set up for a fall as soon as it was something of a more modern entity. I found myself really fighting to get through the last two hundred pages which rarely happens to me. I wish I could have loved it like many others did, but it just wasn't the book for me!

July Playlist

(click for links!)

 California Dreamin' - Bobby Womack

The River - Sam Garret

Just Ain't Gonna Work Out - Mayer Hawthorne

Losing You - Solange

Under Your Spell - Desire

Nirvana - Sam Smith

Don't Sit Down 'Cause I've Moved Your Chair

By The Way

This is me.

Here are a few things about me.
Well I'm 22 years old.
I tend to fall (literally) into ridiculous situations constantly.
If you were to look inside my head you would most likely hear clown music on fast forward.
I don't get out enough. (I'm trying to rectify this)
I will always be messy or terribly unorganised.
I will watch the same film on loop for weeks and still laugh and cry in the same places.
I like having babies around so I can "babysit" whilst eating their supply of rusks.
I read a lot.
I couldn't bring myself to watch the final episode of Prison Break.

Things I greatly appreciate :
Books,
Arctic Monkeys
Uma Thurman's twist in Pulp Fiction
Dogs with human names - like Alan or George
Michael Flatley
Kids in sandals
Independant films
John Travolta dancing to All Shook Up by Elvis,
The Cure
Sleeping in the car
The Michael Fassbender & James McAvoy bromance.

& that's all there is to it really!

It's hard to explain...

Taken from Landline by Rainbow Rowell.

I find it hard to talk about "love". Talking about guys? Sure. Talk about love 'n' stuff in a very sarcastic clownish manner? Course! But explain how I feel about real love? Not so much. I just don't do it that well anymore, it's too bizarre of a topic for me to talk about it in a way that I can even understand, let alone make anyone else understand. But tonight something clinked in my head and to the keypad I go.

I've had experiences with love on polar opposite levels. I've had that real first time-for-everything kind of love, the one that is new and fun, the one where you can stay up talking until 5am on a school night and not even remember what the conversation was about but all you know was that it made your cheeks hurt, and you certainly don't mind being a zombie the next day in English Lit because of it. The one where everything is perfect until one day it's not. THEN I've had the one where you convince yourself that you love someone that is not right for you in any universe for whatever reason, and spend way too much time being unhappy about it until you cut that cord and get out. (Wouldn't recommend the second option.)

Although I find it hard to put my thoughts about love into any useful perspective for myself, I think I am "in love" with love. I adore how a simple small gesture can tell a person a hell of a lot more than the words "yeah, love you and that". This gesture doesn't have to be grand, or obvious, or boyfriend/girlfriend related. Whether it's your mother telling you she's recorded your favourite programme for you, or your close friend inviting you to something they know you would like. Sometimes it is just knowing that someone has thought about you. Thought, and done something to show it.

Basically what I mean is... I read a book today, and teared up. I watched a little video today, and teared up. Twice in one day. Both the premises of these two things were the big bad L word. And for just a little while, it brought me out of my Ice Queen hostility towards love and brought a bit of warmth back into it for me, and I'm thankful for it.

The video is here if you're bothered.

Crying Lightening

It was 5:20am this morning when I was rocked from my easeful sleep. I awoke to crack after crack of lightening and rolls of the most roaring thunder I have ever seen. Once I got over the initial shock of being woken up to what looked like the closing scene of The Jungle Book (you know the one with the vultures that were based on The Beatles?) I heard cries of panic from the kitchen downstairs. I stumbled my way down to open the door and both of my dogs tore out through my legs and headed up the stairs for comfort.

One dog got into bed and immediately went to sleep, blissfully unaware of why she had been disturbed but more than happy to forget about it. The other dog was tearing around the room in an attempt to seek something I could not give him. Assurances that everything would be all right? Of course it would, but I can't tell him that. It hurts so much to see him so distressed and panicked that his world may be closing in around him. It went on for about forty minutes, his panting, crying, fidgeting. Worn out, he has now retired from fear and is spread eagled on the floor.

I wish I could have told him what my Mum used to tell me - "It's just God moving his furniture!"

*-Crying Lightening.*

My Nirvana

This week has not been so much on the busy side, but more full up. The day to day bustle of it all combined with the unusual heat London has been experiencing of late has left me completely beat at the end of each day this week. To rectify this I chose tonight to do what I do best. Chill out. It's a blessing I will never get tired of. The last few hours have been spent updating my iPod with the likes of Bobby Womack and Jon Allen, devouring the last of my ice cream and finishing Slaughterhouse Five.

Spending a little time alone helps me to just shrug off the remains of the work day and slide into relax mode. I always feel like the need to write down little random thoughts that flow through my head each day just for the act of getting them out and down on paper so I have some more room up there. By this I don't mean intellectual put together thoughts, my notebooks can contains things like Marlon Brando films I want to watch or evil quotes from books I have read. Anything and everything, I get it down.

// Currently watching The Counsellor, it hasn't received the greatest reviews but you know, ol' Michael Fassbender keeps me well entertained even if the script does not.